1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a CATV (Community Antenna Television) Terminal Device and more particularly to a CATV terminal device which has a program booking timer function.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In common CATV terminal devices, when one wants to preset a program using a timer function, one needs to operate, as with the video cassete recorders (VCR) or the like, a key input section of the CATV terminal device to set the channel number, start time, end time, and day of the week and store these information in memory.
The CATV system has as large a number of channels as 61. So, any one of the 61 channels can be chosen for timer setting. Although the CATV system has that many channels, not all of them are available to users. In America, there are some unused channels on which no video signals are aired, such as channels 3 and 7; some channels broadcast pay TV programs only available to contracted subscribers.
In the above-mentioned CATV system, since there are many channels in which video signals cannot be received, there is a good chance that a person may select a wrong channel number during the timer setting. If that happens, the CATV terminal device will turn on the wrong channel at the preset start time and receive noise until the terminal device is turned off at the preset end time. If in this case a video cassete recorder (VCR) is used to record a TV program selected on the timer, only noise will be recorded on the tape.
This invention has been accomplished to solve the above-mentioned problem experienced with the conventional CATV terminal devices. It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a CATV terminal device which totally eliminates the possibility that channel numbers in which no video signals are broadcast may be selected in the timer setting even if a person has done a wrong channel number setting.